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Ukraine eyes NATO aspirant status in July
Journal Staff Report

KYIV, April 18 - Ukraine is expecting that at a summit in July NATO will confirm the country’s status as seeking membership in the military alliance, Vadym Prystayko, the country’s representative at the alliance, said Wednesday.

"We expect the heads of state will confirm the status of aspirant for Ukraine,” Prystayko said, quoted by Interfax-Ukraine. “This would be a recognition that we are on the right track and want to become members of the alliance.”

“We also expect that all 29 NATO members will once again confirm that they recognize the sovereignty of Ukraine,” he said.

The comment comes as diplomatic tensions between Ukraine and Hungary over language education legislation has led to postponing of a high level meeting between NATO and Ukraine in February.

President Petro Poroshenko has reiterated in March that Ukraine is seeking a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a formal step toward joining the 29-country Western alliance.

"This is what my letter to Jens Stoltenberg on February 2018 was about, where, with reference to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, I officially [set out] Ukraine's aspirations to become a member of the Alliance," Poroshenko said.

A Membership Action Plan is a multistage process of political dialogue and military reform to bring a country in line with NATO standards and to eventual membership. The process can take several years.

Poroshenko's comments came after NATO updated its website to include Ukraine alongside three other countries -- Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and Macedonia -- that have declared their aspirations to NATO membership.

“Countries that have declared an interest in joining the Alliance are initially invited to engage in an Intensified Dialogue with NATO about their membership aspirations and related reforms,” the NATO website said.

Under former President Viktor Yanukovych, Kyiv said it was not interested in joining NATO. But Kyiv has sought NATO membership since the 2014 anti-government Maidan protests that toppled Moscow-friendly Yanukovych and ushered in a pro-Western government.

Ukraine's Parliament on June 8, 2017, passed a law making NATO integration a foreign policy priority.

In July 2017, Poroshenko announced that he would seek the opening of negotiations on a MAP with NATO.
Ukraine is currently embroiled in a war with Russia-backed separatists in part of its eastern regions that has killed more than 10,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands since April 2014. (om/ez)




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